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To many, he remains the intrepid explorer the Uncharted series ostensibly frames him as to others he was a brutal slaver, a man known to have profited from immeasurable human pain and suffering. In the early titles, Nathan constantly touts his supposed relation to Sir Francis Drake, a controversial historical figure who exemplifies how prismatic attitudes towards a colonial adventurer can become. Developer Naughty Dog actually plays with this ambiguity.

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Looting is an activity most frequently associated with riots, war and the aftermath of invasion, and in Drake’s colonial kleptomania, the full semantic force of the word can be felt. The word “loot” is widely used in video games to mean any collectible item, but few of us stop and consider its connotations. They are culture as collectible trading cards.Ĭonsidering the fact that these “treasures” can take the form of anything from ancient relics to valuable jewels, Drake’s sticky fingered approach to archaeology is something of an ethical quandary. Their only function is to trigger your collector instinct, to get you to take a closer look at the environments. These artefacts are not the primary focus of the game narrative and their religious, social and cultural significance is rarely given a second thought after they’re acquired. Notably, tomb raids are now largely employed as optional side quests Photograph: HandoutĪ recurring mechanic in both the Uncharted and Tomb Raider titles involves finding and collecting the “treasures” hidden around each location. Rise of The Tomb Raider shows Lara Croft reinvented as a more responsible survivalist and explorer. Nathan Drake is a strange sort of archaeologist – one who has very few qualms about letting loose a rocket-propelled grenade inside an ancient temple. While Drake demonstrates that he is knowledgeable about Southern American cultures, many of his actions throughout the game indicate difficulties translating this knowledge into respect. In the first Uncharted game, players are asked to help him locate a solid gold Inca statue connected to the El Dorado folktale. Nathan Drake is, like Lord Elgin before him, a man with a soft spot for grand and exotic statues. We’ll happily lose ourselves in the wonderful escapism – the exotic locations, the intriguing mythologies – with little thought as to what it means to inhabit these characters, and to be made complicit in their actions.

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Many of us are sensitive to the case put forward by countries that have seen their treasures dispersed around the globe but while playing Uncharted or Tomb Raider, we’ll spend hours of our free time engaged in the process of removing valuable cultural artefacts from their native homes. Many large institutions such as New York’s Metropolitan Museum and the Pushkin Museum in Russia are under increasing pressure to repatriate some of their greatest treasures. The Native American Zuni tribe have been extremely vocal in their calls for the return of sacred objects from both European and South American collections. This battle is just one facet of a complex discussion surrounding the removal of ancient artefacts from countries which are often politically or economically vulnerable to exploitation.

This debate has raged for decades, with the name “Lord Elgin” is now all but synonymous with idea of cultural imperialism. This is a time in which the British Museum is under constant pressure from Greece’s culture minister to return the Parthenon marbles to their country of origin. What’s interesting is that these characters continue to flourish in a culture that is becoming increasingly sceptical towards the idea of acquiring and retaining cultural artefacts from overseas. Rider Haggard’s hero Allan Quatermain provided a blueprint for the modern exotic adventurer Photograph: RONALD GRANT A still from the 1937 film King Solomon’s Mines.

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